


To Have Tasted Universes and Then No More

by Kibbers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Synesthesia, fall from grace, gabriel with synesthesia, i dont know what else to tag, lots of wordplay, sam's there to help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibbers/pseuds/Kibbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel grows up an angel, tasting the universe as it grows. But then he falls and he can't taste it any longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Have Tasted Universes and Then No More

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, first thing's first, this idea was inspired by the lovely [ @everythingelsegoesherethen](http://everythingelsegoesherethen.co.vu) in [this post ](http://everythingelsegoesherethen.co.vu/post/136800523970/hopesetfree-highermagic-casandsip) in which they introduced the idea of angels with synesthesia. They have so kindly given me permission to branch off this idea and share it with you all :)  
> Also, I'd like to point out that this is not how I think living with synesthesia feels, but how it might feel to angels, more specifically Gabriel. I know that this won't be everyone's cup of tea and that is okay! It is a lot of word play and was a lot of fun to write since I love messing around with words and how they're organized and the like. This was originally a text response to the post above, but an anon asked me to post it and so here we are. Let me know what you think!

Because Gabriel, archangel-ancient and forever-alive Gabriel, would have lived like this for so long. He’d feel the universe growing older beneath his fingers. He’d taste history as it unfolds. Sometimes it would be sweet on the tongue, fresh-rain sweet and whipped cream light as the humans built wonders out of words and uprooted the ground below their feet. Gabriel watched in blinding wonder as they forged their way into the universe and into the earth and into life itself. As pyramids found their perfect point towards the sky and as they threw themselves into the ocean for the first time on a blue summer day when the clouds were nonexistent and the day tasted like centuries. Sometimes it would be acidic fruit and a color between a bruised apple and the wavering of the air in the middle of the desert as the humans swung from praying and devotion to slaughter and sadness and feeling oh so alone in the same blink of a star. As they sat home alone crying white to themselves and as their guns fired at flesh and blood spattered across the sand of time they named themselves over and over and over again. He’d watch from his cloud-heaven home and watch as swaying-hipped life found its way to existence, the good and the bad of it all.

And then he meets Sam because of course he meets Sam, Sam is so many things at once. He’s both shimmering gold and the white foam of warm ocean waves. He’s the taste of Gabriel’s favorite spot as a child hidden in the cloudy palace he called home. He’s the flutter of eyelashes against skin and the whispering of a river as it cuts into mountains just trying to find its way home. His skin feels like the slow birth of a star, like the pink that only exists in the sky during one solitary second of the sunset before it is gone forever. He’s the dancing light taste of the northern lights and a feather fluttering through the air on its way to launch an avalanche. Gabriel can’t help but fall in love with the galaxies he saw every time Sam Winchester’s heartbeat. Every single beat.

But Gabriel has always been rough and jagged, the color of old blood and the sound of a tear sliding down the soft skin of a cheek. Thunder-shattered window pieces raining from a black sky, glitteringly sharp as they fall towards earth. He has always been the silence of the night so thick it suffocated the heavens until the sun rose again to wake life up blindingly and damp hotel rooms for one. Always the stars falling dead to earth and never gazing up at them. So he says nothing to Sam, and tries to help the late-morning old-book yellow-warm man survive this slow tornado of a world.

But then Gabe falls from grace. And he knows now what the humans do not. Knows why it is so hard to be human. He’d seen them struggle before, but now he knew exactly why they were all hurricanes and marching armies and the smoke left after the take-off of a rocket inside. Because angels have always been creatures _ OF _ . Creatures of the skies. Of the ocean. Of the earth. Of every single colors the world could ever hope to create. Of the sounds of creation itself. They have been creatures of everything for so very long and Gabriel had been part of that, had grown into himself that way.

But humans have always been creatures _FROM_. Creatures from stardust. From pieces of the glass ocean. They are part miracle because everything came together just right to give them space to breathe and part something they created themselves. They have never been in control of the universe, nor felt its power through their hands. They were allowed to exist and for that, God did not give them memories of the universe and all of time. They’d have to do it alone.

So they cannot feel the universe thrum beneath their skin in all of its forms. Can’t see it all unfold before them and behind them and forever. They cannot see what they are because they have not seen everything and cannot hope to. Gabriel knows, now, that humans do not know the earth feels the same way they do. Can’t see just how their anger can feel like the sharpness of purple or the softness of lava. Knows they do not see the images of the earth when they fall in love, nor of the stars, nor of the heavens, even though that’s what they are feeling and the earth is feeling too. So they think they are alone. Alone with their own universes of anger and pain and sadness and love. And though they are so alone in it, the do it anyway. They continue to love and to hurt and to be. Gabriel does not know why. All he feels is emptiness. Gabriel is alone in it without the universe inside of him to explain what he is feeling and he does not know how to cope without it.

And Sam’s there because of course Sam’s there and Gabriel learns that Sam’s skin is still soft even if it doesn’t bring the taste of rolling hills with it. And his name is still beautiful even if it doesn’t sound like slow dancing and iridescent pebbles left on the beach in the dead of night. Learns that words will never be what they were before, but he can still use them. He can still make them bright or heavy, blue or gold. Words are the closest thing to his life before, it seems, and Sam helps him find them, even if they are just for himself. To explain to himself what he is feeling. He learns the words for dull hunger and sharp pain and soft contentment. Learns there are words for the way the earth vibrates after it rains and for the star that blinks awake first in the sky he used to call home. Learns that these humans he watched create universes, created worlds of words to explain it too because they had nothing but the tongues in their mouths to make themselves not feel so alone.

Gabriel learns to be both a creature of and a creature from and there is no way to tell anyone how different they are. How he cannot decide which is better or more painful and how he’s sure the one that is better is also more painful. But he is human now and he has no choice but to be one. He does, however, choose Sam. Sam. One thousand times Sam. The man who is universes expanding slowly and forever, and just a human with a heart that beats like home.

There’s no difference, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Give me some feedback on tumblr [ here](www.kibberswrites.tumblr.com) or below in the comments if you are so inclined...I'd love to hear from you!


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